Jeremy Marchant’s blog

This blog is personal, opinionated and, when I can rise to the occasion, provocative. emotional intelligence at work, the business, does not necessarily agree with all the sentiments expressed; in particular, emotional intelligence at work is not a party political business.

Most businesses have concepts of ‘volume of sales’ (number of sales transactions in a given period) and of the (average) ‘value of a sale’. Looking across the broad sweep of businesses in any area (whether geographical area or business sector), clearly there will be businesses...

1 Prison population Combined, England and Wales has the highest rate of imprisonment in western Europe, according to the Council of Europe’s annual penal statistics [*1]. The prison population in England and Wales has stabilised at nearly 86,000 in recent years but the...

Homeopathy has raised its head in my local rag, Stroud news and journal. Let’s get the facts right. 1 Christian Hahnemann invented homeopathy in 1796. He had been trained as a doctor, but not as a scientist [*1]. 2 In the 221 years since, not one single scientific study has been...

…to solve the UK’s immigration problem 1 What is the UK’s immigration problem? It is that some people already resident in the UK think that too many people, currently not resident, are being allowed to come and stay. The indigenous people (some of whom are just the...

A recent blog has caught my eye. It’s Why Hate Speech is Not Free Speech by Professor George Lakoff, Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972, and it’s...

This blog is about how to talk to people at networking events If people tell me what they do at networking events, I rarely remember for any length of time. (That is, after all, why we hand out business cards that say what we do.) If I do remember, I have may wel...

1 The UK needs a regulator for internet sites, in much the same way as the telecomms regulator, Ofcom. Compliance by internet sites should not be optional and failure to comply should result in a site being shut down in the UK. 2 The new regulator would have the power to impose...

As discussed here, in all projects, things go wrong. In a gigantic project, things will go wrong big time. 1 No plan It is realised that there isn’t a plan. Or what there is is so inadequate that it’s worse than useless. Given that the Leave side in the referendum did...

As discussed in part 1, the British seem unable to “think things through”. Here are twelve major brexit problems which those in charge of implementing whatever is agreed will have to face. Even though I am no fortune teller, this is so close to fact, rather than...

An analogy Think of a small business, say thirty people. Its financial software is out of date and increasingly failing to support all the business’s needs. So the board decides to invest in a new package. An exercise is carried and a new package is identified and purchased. ...

1 On 14 june 2017 Mr Tim Farron resigned from his position as ‘leader’ of the Liberal Democrats in the UK. I put ‘leader’ in quotation marks because I am not sure that Mr Farron is or was a real leader and I am certain that the bosses of the other parties, including Mrs Theresa...

—— I am resigned to my local rag, Stroud news and journal, telling me that a particular story it is running is “incredibly moving”—even within the editorial content, where such remarks have no place at all, and even if they have no hope of substantiating it. Here are...

[This article was originally written for commenters on the Guardian‘s ‘below the line’ Comment is free facility.] When posting your comments, do bear in mind the following principles and precepts. You can increase the value of your posts by up to 50% if you do!...

Some of these six problems apply to projects other than IT projects. 1 A failure to distinguish between want and need. At least one person has explicitly stated the supplier has to find out what the client wants and deliver it No! That will end in tears. You have to establish...

Problem [*1]: I am a 40-year-old man who has always suffered with incredible shyness and insecurity around women. My shyness is better now; I can talk to women, and have female friends, but I have never really had a proper relationship. The few times I have had sex with women...

Most pop groups and solo performers peak on their second disc, at least they used to. Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane and many others. After that high spot, everything afterwards has been a remorseless trudge into the depths of increasing banality. And they know it. It went...

emotional intelligence at work uses a model that postulates that relationships go through five stages * (see also About this model below). 1 Honeymoon stage The first of these is the honeymoon stage. We are all familiar with that sudden overwhelming feeling of “true love”—more...

1 I am no Labour supporter, but I want a strong Labour leader. Mr Jeremy Corbyn has to go firstly because he has failed to deliver a credible—or any—opposition to the government in the lifetime of his “leadership”. His first duty was to his country, not to a particular faction...

1 As a preamble, we should recognise that high profile politicians, particularly those in government, have always let us down. I hope to return to this subject in a forthcoming post. When I was a student, we had the ‘three day week’—a joint production between tory prime...

Here is my blog of 26 february [*1] (cut), annotated with what really happened Why any referendum is a political cop out 1 The issue is too complex to be reducible to a single question to which the only answers are yes and no. … whether the UK should stay in the EU is too...

1 One of the most irritating aspects of the aftermath of the EU referendum is those voters who, having voted to leave, are now choosing to express their ‘buyer’s remorse’ in public “I voted leave to help our economy. However the £ has plummeted and I immediately regret my...

1 It would be churlish to complain that Mr Jeremy Corbyn is/was no leader, when no other high profile politician (with a very few exceptions) has been a leader either *. I like to think that Shirley Williams is one, but I would have to go back to Churchill to think of another...

Not necessarily in this order: 1 Gove wins Conservative leadership election and proves wholly incapable of uniting the party. Conservative party splits into right/far-right group (incorporating UKIP, BNP and the rest) and more centrist group 2 The UK has an early general...

1 The assassination of Jo Cox has brought out a number of thoughtful articles on the way that communication in society is becoming ever more hateful as social media permit unpleasant people to hide safely behind fatuous aliases while ‘senior’ politicians resort to ever more...

This question was posted on the Guardian‘s Dear Jeremy (no relation) webpage [*1] I’m going for job after job but feel more and more that I am only being asked to attend interviews to make up the numbers as every time the job appears to go to internal staff. For example,...

There has been a lot of work in recent years by António Damásio and many others on what states the brain is in when its owner makes a decision (maybe, thinks they are making a decision). Damásio’s finding, and it has been corroborated by empirical studies, particularly of well...

Many situation that arise in member countries can be managed by the countries, possible in conjunction with their nearest neighbours. For example, the foot and mouth disease outbreak that hit the UK in 2001 (and which ultimately cost £8000 million) [*1]. Refugee crisis But there...

Four very common misconceptions: 1 The purpose of the application is to get the job. No, the purpose of the application is to get an interview. This is not the same thing and, unless the jobs you seek are offered without interview, you have to get through the interview before...

The excellent Full Fact website reports [*1] The European Court of Auditors (ECA), an EU body set up to examine the accounts of the Union, signed off on the 2014 accounts as reliable—something it’s done for every set of figures since 2007. But it did find that payments made...

BBC Radio 4 has a number of issues. One of them is that it seems it cannot see that it has these issues. And, while Feedback (Radio 4) is to be praised for getting BBC producers and managers to come onto the programme and defend their work (something which I suspect many of...

Is the sensitive and humane nature of Mr David Cameron, our prime minister, taking a battering? He may well remember what happened when the Berlin wall fell. The easterners were beside themselves with joy to start with. Many flooded to the west, and stayed, placing strain on...

I believe the Guardian is facing a period in which its long term future is to be decided. Because it is owned by a trust it doesn’t have quite the same commercial imperatives as other UK newspapers. However, the trust does not have bottomless pockets. The cover price of...

1 “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” This maxim ranks high on the list of quotations attributed to Peter Drucker. There’s just one problem: He never actually said it.—Drucker institute [*1] I agree that that is a problem. For a variety of reasons, the internet is...

1 A difficult question. If, like me, you would argue that the UK’s parliamentary system, including our electoral practice, isn’t democratic, then the EU is certainly less so. [For the UK, I would prefer a term such as ‘ecclesiastocracy’, a word I have just made up and meaning...

1 All decisions based on dogma are suspect and most are wrong. [Dogma: “a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted” (Merriam-Webster). Most people call these beliefs ‘ideological’. But, ideology is the study of...

My local rag, the Stroud news and journal, printed this in its edition of 27 april as a news item: A PENSIONER who suffers from a rare condition has thanked a therapist who helped her regain confidence. Joy Alexander, 74, was diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt Syndrome in 2014, making it...

Gary Weinstein I’m so proud. They’ve graduated! Well done to them all! Recently our year-long GradStart business and soft skills development programme for young employees finished. Over the past year, I’ve seen a transformation in the young people who joined...

1 The Guardian is currently running series of articles exploring why so many of the comments it receives from readers for publication ‘below the line’ are offensive or are, at best, beside the point or don’t make a point at all [*1]. Apparently moderators remove 2% of...

The right to free speech is not the right to say anything I like The right to free speech is the right to speak freely. It is the right to be unimpeded by any person or organisation when one wishes to say something. It is not the right for me to say anything I like, whenever I...

In a discussion recently, someone asserted that a belief that God exists is on the same level as a belief that God doesn’t exist; that these are logical equivalences. I don’t think that’s true, and here’s why. 1 In 1742, George Frideric Händel—a migrant, as we would now say,...

It depends what you mean by “largest” [*1]. 1 By GDP (nominal) the UK is the fifth (2014 estimate) Nominal GDP [gross domestic product—the value of all final goods and services produced within a state in a given year] does not take into account differences in the cost of living...

On BBC1 television’s panel game, Question time, last Thursday, 26 february 2016, Mr Giles Fraser, a man of God [*1], said: We pay 50 million a day to the EU. We get some of it back, of course when they let us, and in the way they want… It is not for me to comment on the...

The British public is to vote in a referendum on the country’s membership of the European Union. This blog is about whether a referendum is a suitable way of deciding the question. Whether or not we should stay is for another time. It gives my views on why a referendum...

Welcome to this year’s rant at the worst of email marketing. It will probably be my last on this subject. At 7000 words, it is by far the longest blog I have written. Why? Because I want to illustrate the wide range and number of issues, all of which need to be addressed well...

Hunt’s medical qualifications Our sparkling current health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, appears to have no education in health or medicine: he studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford. After university Hunt worked for two years as a management consultant at OC&C...

In a move which can only be described as either hilarious or jaw-droppingly insincere, talented health secretary, Jeremy Hunt has launched an urgent inquiry into the level of junior doctors’ morale and welfare as large numbers threaten to quit the profession over being forced to...

In my line of business, I often have to help people understand why they do things in preparation for working out what they could do better. Invaluable in this process is the purpose and outcomes model. This essentially says there is a difference between your purpose in doing...

As has been widely reported [*1], Tesco was done last week for contravening the UK “groceries code”. Widespread evidence of “payments delayed to disguise missed targets, and suppliers left waiting for million-pound payments for up to two years. Sometimes there were arbitrary or...

These gems are based on a lifetime’s experience of call centres. In recent experience, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Vodafone, Carphone Warehouse, Samsung and the RAC have all inspired me to put fingers to keyboard. 1 Always remember that the purpose of your call centre is...

In his excellent book, The corporation, Joel Bakan writes, As a psychopathic creature, the corporation can neither recognize nor act upon moral reasons to refrain from harming others. This is a case study. Unlike my blog on Talk talk, I have had to rely on media reports as I...

The UK parliamentary and health service ombudsman, Dame Julie Mellor, has published her ‘review into the quality of NHS complaints investigations where serious or avoidable harm has been alleged’ [Guardian articles on this: here, december 2015, and here, february 2015]. The...

I had the pleasure of attending one of the government’s speed awareness courses recently in Gloucestershire. I think the course was based on a false premise. That premise is that speed kills. But speed is a mathematical concept, the ratio of distance moved by an object and the...

At my request, I was called the other day by someone (“Laura”) from the Talktalk chief executive’s office. I had complained that, through apparent negligence, Talktalk had allowed my personal financial information to be hacked by criminals not once, but three times in the past...

Background The guardian reported, 19 august 2015, Britain’s failure to create sufficient high-skilled jobs for its rising proportion of graduates means the money invested in education is being squandered, while young people are left crippled by student debts, warns a ne...

A Times Higher Education report discusses Employability: which university is doing the best by its students? Whether it justifies the subhead, The Global Employability University Survey reveals where to study to get a job, is debatable, but it is an interesting article with some...

Take a profession, any profession. Say, plumbers. It’s possible to assess plumbers on a number of criteria, including their competence, problem-solving skills, efficiency, and so on. It’s also possible to assess them on their probity. Probity, definition: “the quality of a...

I regret I have to inform you of a malaise increasingly taking a grip in Radio 4. This is goslingitis. In this incurable affliction, broadcasters turn into parodies of themselves. It is a shocking and distressing condition, causing listeners in their droves to switch off rather...

Of those businesses that understand about the primary importance of customer services, many are trapped by people who should know better into worrying about how they measure customer service. Here are some questions to ask people who make an unreasoning emphasis on this. 1 Who...

Motivation comes from within. Therefore, trying to motivate someone else is usually a waste of time. (If the other person does seem to be motivated, ask if it was, in fact, anything to do with you. Just because B follows A doesn’t mean B was caused by A.) So why do people...

Even today, I have found people on LinkedIn discussion forums promoting articles and videos in which they attempt to explain why my business has to be unique. This is so last century. Literally. A few years ago, I needed a graphic designer to produce new designs for my...

I believe it is wholly pointless to invite atheists and agnostics to an interfaith discussion. Drawing on Bertrand Russell, it would be like inviting people who didn’t believe a chocolate teapot was orbiting the sun to a meeting of those who did. The meeting would be...

I was asked this recently by a colleague. He added, “And of course, we never truly know what drives the behaviours, unless they tell us.” Well, we know what sorts of things drive them: emotions and feelings, and thoughts and beliefs. I call this the behaviour cycle, and...

An article on the internet, How to not hire a dud: The killer interview questions every candidate should be asked *, suggests that there are some “killer interview questions” which “will help you to sort the wheat from the chaff, as well as highlight some of the signs that...

If you hang around LinkedIn discussion groups that are largely patronised by Americans, you quickly learn of their taste for exaggeration. Noone should aspire to merely being a “leader”, fine though that aspiration is. We all have to want to be “Great Leaders”. If everything is...

I don’t like the term “soft skills” because it relates to something which isn’t soft and isn’t a skill. Apart from that it’s a great name. “Soft skills” is the capacity to relate well to our fellow human beings. Everyone has to be...

Oh, fercrinowtloud!! NOBODY needs an elevator speech. Great or otherwise. Imagine you thought I could help your business. And let’s say for the sake of argument that, indeed, if only we both knew it, I could be the saviour of your business. Imagine further that you find...

I always talk to clients about “Purpose and outcomes“. In other words, what is the purpose of this meeting? What is the purpose of this business? What is your purpose? And so on, and so on. It’s a good question to ask because, whilst it’s simple, it picks up...

A LinkedIn contributor recently posted this discussion topic I naively began an Indiegogo campaign devoted to mental health and I’ve spread the word far and wide. This is a site for people who are looking for ideas of where to donate funds. A “save the bees”...

Purpose and outcomes At emotional intelligence at work, we make a clear distinction between purpose, outcomes and actions. Although it is often tempting to say that the purpose of a job, or a project, or an article, or anything else is to achieve certain objectives (that is,...

Was I the only one to be surprised to hear that the pope would “punch” a “good friend” who uttered a “curse word” against his mother? Apparently, “it’s normal”. The words I have quoted are an unknown translator’s rendition of what the pope said, so maybe they are inaccurate,...

Warning: some plot spoilers. Plot summary. I watched Gravity over the holiday. A domestic screening with a relatively modest HD tv and hifi—it’s the sort of film that probably does work best in the cinema. At least, we turned the lights off to add to the ambience. Firstly,...

Fifteen minute programmes have made a valuable contribution to the Radio 4 (R4) schedules over the decades, from Listen with mother to Letter from America. But the number of fifteen minute programmes has now increased unfeasibly. On Tuesdays there are currently ten of them: One...

A few common statements about branding: Brands are the messengers of trust Are they? What does this mean? How is it that the same brand can be trusted by some and not by others? Examples: all brands belonging to businesses that avoid paying their fair share of UK taxes and/or...

A correspondent to the local rag asked us to contact Ed Davey and David Cameron to tell them to pull their fingers out on climate change (my words!). However, this would be a futile gesture as it misunderstands the intentions and motives of senior politicians in all countries....

One still comes across, with depressing frequency, articles which ask whether nature or nurture is responsible for a human trait. The writer posits some debate or argument which he or she imagines is engaged in by academics around the world. However, the “nature versus nurture...

Right now, the BBC, and other media, are exercised by the great problem of whether a memorial to the British military dead of world war 1 should be dismantled on 12 November or should be allowed to stay for a few weeks, such is the great desire of the British public to visit it....

I am engaged in a protracted discussion with Carphone Warehouse (CPW) and its suppliers, Vodafone and Samsung. Frequently, when I am about to conclude yet another protracted call to one of their call centres, the person at the other end says, “No problem”. Well, it is ...

The “West Lothian question” has been presented as being in some way difficult to understand. Putting aside those people who make it difficult by stating it incorrectly, it‘s actually quite simple. 1 In the olden days, legislation passed by the UK parliament at Westminster...

Back in 1978, the then chief secretary to the UK Treasury, Joel (now Lord) Barnett, was having a hard time. It was an era of appalling management of the economy by the Labour government (the “winter of discontent” had amused the nation over 1978-79); the government...

Firstly, let’s get the numbers right. 1 84.7% of Scots voted, and 44.7% of them voted for separation from the rest of the UK. That means 37.9% of Scots voted to leave. [source: The guardian] Whilst, clearly, there will have been some Scots who were prevented at the last...

Recently, on LinkedIn, this question was raised: I am a 25 year old young professional, and I am experiencing pain and hardship trying to put my emotional intelligence learning into practice. Probably because I know EQ can be measured and I have set targets for myself...

Related material: > blog: How should Scotland vote? There a further issues with this referendum. Firstly, if, in a relationship, one person walks out, the other person does have a right to express an opinion. If the Scots are going to break up the relationship between them...

This game has two sides, White—who has to play alone and who will turn on anyone who tries to help him—and Black, who can be played by any number of people. As far as White is concerned, the more the better. Bring it on! All must be members of a LinkedIn discussion forum. No...

In a recent Radio 4 programme Lord Digby Jones argued that it would be useful if there were a covenant between business, society and government to address the lack of trust between these organisations. “The relationship between business creating wealth, government and society—all...

Asking clients whether they received an above average service is meaningless. “Service” can’t be quantified, let alone measured, therefore calculating an “average” is impossible. And, it is possible for a large majority of a group to all be above average in a particular measure:...

Related material: > blog: Scottish referendum: what a shambles There are two problems with the Scottish referendum: Firstly, no relationship is over until it’s over. With a significant proportion of Scottish voters wanting to stay in the union, the relationship between...

The view from colleges and universities Dependence, like every mental characteristic develops neither under the influence of nature, nor of nurture, but under the complex, dynamic interaction of nature and nurture. (This video makes the case powerfully and clearly (in the...

There is increasing concern among schools, colleges of further and higher education, and among employers that school leavers and graduates are “unemployable”. It is not just illiteracy and innumeracy—though it includes those things—it covers everything from a failure to perform...

A recent post in a LinkedIn coaching forum managed to encapsulate most of the worries new coaches must have (though it omitted one rather important thing). This was my reply: 1 You say “I am struggling with… understanding my assumptions/past experiences/knowledge”. You...

A recent post on LinkedIn asked this question. “EQ” is a term deliberately coined to be like “IQ”. IQ stands for “intelligence quotient”. It’s a number derived from marking a person’s answers to a standard set of tests. The tests,...

… and how Bristol city council couldn’t get it more wrong This blog is one of an ongoing series discussing examples of good and bad customer service. Google “parking Bristol” and the first search result is that of Bristol City Council’s site. Fair enough. T...

The sublime For some time, a relative had live-in 24/7 care to help them cope with worsening dementia. As their care needs became more challenging, it was clear that they would have to move to a care home. It fell to me to look for one. Luckily, my relative could afford one of...

The meaning of your communication lies in the response you get (Bodenhammer and Hall, The user’s manual for the brain, Crown House, 2000, p79). A well known NLP presupposition, of course (well known to NLP people, that is). But is it actually correct? It’s an important...

About ten years ago, when I was a member of the then Gloucestershire chamber of commerce, the chairman said a very wise thing. “What is a chamber of commerce?”, he asked. “It’s a room (a chamber), in which people meet to do business (commerce).” If a chamber of commerce is not...

This game requires two participants, Black and White, who are both members of a LinkedIn discussion forum. No message is intended by the choice of colours or the allocation of colours to roles in the game: the analogy is with chess. No sexism is intended by the choice of gender...

How to sing in a choir 3 The choir meets the conductor for the first time When the chorus master has honed his pride and joy to musical perfection, or four days before the concert, whichever is the sooner—and I’ll give you three guesses as to which of these comes first in...

How to sing in a choir 2 The chorus master is the poor sod who has to rehearse the choir and bring them just to the peak of perfection, only to hand the songsters over to the conductor of the concert who then takes the credit for the fine job they’ve done on the night. If he (or...

How to sing in a choir 1 England has a fine tradition of choral singing. Of course, Wales also has a fine tradition of male voice choirs, but this gender exclusion, due to the historical reason that the women were all down the pit hewing the coal while the chaps were up above...

I want to make it clear that I do not endorse any of UKIP’s policies (or those of any other political party) but I am fascinated by how this party was so successful in last week’s EU elections. Targeting their market Nigel Farage, the leader (I use the word very advisedly—it’s...

I recently received probably the worst marketing email ever. It was creepy. It opens ominously, as if it were from a petulant stalker: My records show me that you have not been opening my emails lately. That is just that little bit scary. What is this woman recording about me?...

As Tolstoy observes at the start of Anna Karenina, Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. [*1] Equally, happiness at work is a doddle; unhappiness is much more complicated, runs much deeper and is more likely to be exogenous, ie not...

I was grimly amused to read, “A bungled execution in Oklahoma “fell short of humane standards”, the White House said on Wednesday [30 April], as the state announced an investigation into how a condemned man ended up dying from a heart attack after writhing and thrashing on...

It is well known that particular constituents of certain foods have specific benefits to the body. Apparently, grated carrots can be used to help heal wounds, cuts and inflammation. Blueberries are one of the richest sources of proanthocyanidins which have a unique ability to...

I’ve been invited by Thames Valley chambers of commerce to give a presentation at one of their business breakfasts. 24 April 2014 . 7:30 am Newbury Racecourse, Newbury, Berks, RG14 7NZ At their request, I’ll be talking on two classic issues that can typically affect a...

The IT industry is fond of arguing that children should be taught computer programming as a way of improving the country’s economic chances. But, the idea that children have to learn coding so that—to give the example provided by an interviewee on Radio 4 Today (4 February...

A correspondent writes: Why do you think we not like great creators of mathematics, literature, art or music, such as Schubert, Dante and Poincaré? But they are not even like each other, so it isn’t surprising that other people aren’t like them as well. People are...

Coaches often fret about how they will respond if a prospect or client asks them how they measure the success of their work. They’re always looking in LinkedIn discussion forums for ‘tools’ and ‘techniques’ to help them prove they have had an effect...

Jeremy has a go at fatuous reporting of research In an article titled: “New Study Shows Humans Are on Autopilot Nearly Half the Time” (why must Americans capitalise every word?), the second paragraph starts: It turns out that just under half the time, 46.9% to be exact, people...

Scope creep happens when what a service provider thinks they are delivering (and is in the process of developing or implementing) gets changed by the client at short notice demanding that extras and changes are infiltrated into the specification. I don’t think it is so much...

If I see a hungry lion racing for me, aiming for my throat, I feel fear. It’s a visceral reaction out of my conscious control. It is an instinct. If I am walking down a road in England, perpetually scared that a lion might attack me, that isn’t fear, although it is commonly...

In my youth, I was fascinated by words and the derivations. I remember discovering that helicopter comes from two Greek words. Not ‘heli’ and ‘copter’, as you might think, but ‘helico’ (as in helical, or helix, ie a spiral) and ‘pter’ (a wing, as in a word known to all small...

A recent LinkedIn thread set up this assertion for comment: “After failure, shame is harmful, guilt is productive”. There appears to be a degree of blurring of the definitions of guilt and shame, both in common parlance and amongst those who ought to know better. So, for the...

Some recent blogs by others have illustrated a surprisingly oldfashioned approach to engaging with prospects and clients. In a nutshell they illustrate the belief that you have to be something other than you are, someone other than you are, if you are going to be successful. I...

“In 2008 Warren Buffett became the richest person in the world, with a total net worth estimated at $62 billion by Forbes and at $58 billion by Yahoo” (Wikipedia). Apparently, at his peak, he possessed $64,000,000,000 and was the 25th richest person in the world since the...

After a year or so’s membership of the Professional Speaking Association, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two sorts of speaker, just as there are two sorts of pianist (well, there are more but arguably there are clearly two preeminent types of pianist). One type of...

I came across a webpage offering ten rules not to break when giving a presentation. I thought some things were missing, so here are ten more in the same style. 1 Slides Don’t use them. Few presentations—other than lectures—need them, fewer are improved by them and the vast...

In The guardian, Tony Yeaman comments: “Prof Don Berwick’s report Improving the Safety of Patients in England follows a long line of investigations into failures in care within the NHS and a plethora of responses to them; and yet we are no closer to the solution of...

I’m constantly surprised how many businesses send out emails, or pay someone else to send out emails on their behalf, seeking to promote their business which simply irritate (or worse). Here are ten things not do if you must send out marketing emails: 1 Don’t send out...

The Friends and Family Test (FFT) is a single question used to assess services provided by the NHS: “How likely are you to recommend our ward/A&E department to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?”. NHS England’s publication guidance says: “The Friends...

A recent discussion thread on LinkedIn asked: Have we gone overboard w/ focus on ‘happiness’? Several new studies suggest focusing on ‘being happy’ makes people LESS happy, and less fulfilled in a deeper sense. What’s the right balance? To which I...

I like quoting Einstein. Know why? Because nobody dares contradict you.—Studs Terkel Funnily enough, Einstein did not say Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results. Nor did Confucius, Benjamin Franklin or Freud. Nor did Einstein say Not everything...

According to The guardian “The Keogh review [published yesterday, 16 July] into high death rates at 14 NHS trusts has not found a disaster on the scale of Mid Staffs, but rather the more banal spectacle of mediocre hospitals, struggling to meet one improvement target after...

There is some discussion about whether the British public should be offered a referendum on the country’s membership of the European Union. Here are some arguments against the idea that the referendum is a part of the democratic process: (1) The issue is too complex to be...

When my mother was ill last year in hospital, it gave me some opportunities to be curious about how the staff were with her and with each other. Every morning, someone would come around and ask her what she wanted in her meals for the rest of the day. It was always one of two...

Are laws designed to protect individuals and minority groups from offence and harassment inhibiting free speech? A discussion recently on BBC Radio 4’s Unreliable evidence addressed this question with some high powered contributors. An activist for disability rights, Bethan...